In June I took note of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D‑R.I.) op-ed “urg[ing] the U.S. Department of Justice to consider filing a racketeering suit against the oil and coal industries for having promoted wrongful thinking on climate change, with the activities of ‘conservative policy’ groups an apparent target of the investigation as well.” I pointed out that this was a significant step toward criminalizing policy differences and using litigation and government enforcement to punish opponents in public debate, and meshed with an existing fishing-expedition investigation of climate-skeptic scholarship by Whitehouse and other Democrats on Capitol Hill. Others had already gone farther than the senator himself, calling for making “climate denial” a “crime against humanity,” holding public trials of fossil fuel executives for having resisted the truth, and so forth. (Gawker: “arrest climate change deniers.”) And I noted a recurring argument — “we did it to the tobacco companies, so there’s no reason we can’t do it here too” that tended to confirm my fears that the federal government set a dangerous precedent back then when it “took the stance that pro-tobacco advocacy could amount to a legal offense.”
Now there are further signs that a concerted campaign is under way. “Letter To President Obama: Investigate Deniers Under RICO” is the headline over a letter from twenty scientists, most at respected institutions, endorsing the Whitehouse idea and calling for the federal government to launch a probe under the racketeering (RICO) law. The letter was soon being widely promoted around the web, even at BoingBoing, often regarded as a pro-free-speech outlet.